


Sage Advice

by ClickClickBoom



Series: Ghosts That We Knew [1]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-26
Updated: 2017-09-26
Packaged: 2019-01-05 17:34:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12194529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClickClickBoom/pseuds/ClickClickBoom
Summary: A slight play on continuity after Demands of the Qun. Qun mercenaries nearly manage to kill The Iron Bull with a far more potent poison than he’d prepared for. After fighting like hell to keep the former Ben Hassrath alive, Inquisitor Trevelyan is forced to reckon with whether continuing to keep a cordial, protective distance from a fellow she’s grown so fond of is what she truly wants. Perceptive as ever, Dorian offers some sage advice.





	Sage Advice

**Author's Note:**

> **Dragon Age: Inquisition:** Sage Advice  
>  **Characters:** Dorian Pavus, Inquisitor Trevelyan, The Iron Bull, The Bull’s Chargers  
>  **Word Count:** 2,515  
>  **Synopsis:** A slight play on continuity after Demands of the Qun. Qun mercenaries nearly manage to kill The Iron Bull with a far more potent poison than he’d prepared for. After fighting like hell to keep the former Ben Hassrath alive, Inquisitor Trevelyan is forced to reckon with whether continuing to keep a cordial, protective distance from a fellow she’s grown so fond of is what she truly wants. Perceptive as ever, Dorian offers some sage advice.  
>  **Rating:** E  
>  **Warnings:** None.  
>  **Writer Notes:** New to this whole fanfiction thing. Having a go for funzies. This is intended as a one-shot. Perhaps it’ll turn into something more down the road.

Sight returned slowly, as though the stinging veil of unconsciousness had been been peeled back with a drunken, lumbering draw. With his head foggy and aching and his mouth parched to the point of pain, the Iron Bull did not move a muscle save for the flutter of his good eye. He glanced about his surroundings, taking everything in at once.

He was alive, despite bodily aching like hell, and he was in his usual choice sleeping spot - the tower room above Harold’s Rest - which was looking even worse for wear than its usual state of upheaval. His wrists and ankles were bound so thoroughly to the hulking Orlesian bed beneath him that he doubted even his ability to wrestle free. Most conspicuously of all, at that very moment, the immaculately coiffed Tevinter Mage who sat in a nearby armchair was making a show of clipping closed the book he held amidst slender fingers, and pursing his mustachioed mouth with a knowing glance Bull’s way.

In defiance of his effort to remain still, the slight change in Bull’s breathing was all Dorian Pavus needed, it seemed, to have gathered that the hulking Qunari under his watch had finally returned to the waking world.

“I should be dead,” Bull noted after a stretch, his gaze returning to the ceiling.

“You sound disappointed,” the Vint chided quietly. He rose with barely a sound, setting his book aside, before reaching to lift the blanket at Bull’s side. He winced at the inky stains that were seeping through the Qunari’s bindings there. Those bandages would need changing soon. “Although, if it's any consolation, you very nearly were. Multiple times over, in fact.”

“Those Qun assholes manage to stab me more than the once?”

“No,” Dorian replied flatly, opting to ignore the tone of hostility brewing in Bull’s words, “No, the once was all it took with that potent a poison. It was the Inquisition soldiers that were ready to have you after that. You nearly tore one of their lieutenants in half.”

That finally wrenched a proper reaction from the Bull. Dorian watched tentatively as every thick muscle in the great horned man’s body tensed and shifted. His massive hands balled into fists as he readied to give his bindings a good yank. Dorian raised a slender hand swiftly, however. 

It was less that motion and more the unexpected request to remain quiet, however, that lulled Bull’s anger into submission. The bedraggled Qunari's one good eye followed Dorian’s gesture to Bull’s opposite side.

A peculiar, almost deflating noise escaped the Iron Bull at this. His balled fist laxed to hover an open palm above the nest of red hair that fanned out upon the blankets at his side, always just shy of making proper contact with its owner, as had become his way.

“You've been out for three days. Our Inquisitor has scarcely shied from your presence for the whole of it,” Dorian noted quietly of the slight, slumbering young archer who sat half curled into a chair, and half tucked into Bull’s side where he lie.

Memories were sweeping back, fragmented and jumbled though they were, and Bull winced against the pain they drummed through his temples.

Two Ben Hassrath agents were all they had sent to formally oust him from the Qun. It had seemed an insult the moment he'd found himself under attack… But two agents was all it had taken to fell him. The poison that had set fire his veins with one well-placed knife wound had stripped him of his wits no sooner had Bull tossed the pair of assassins off of the walkway to scatter their entrails on the courtyard below.

What had followed was bedlam. The poison worked fast. It robbed him of his faculties as readily as it began shutting down his body. Left in a fading haze of madness, the Iron Bull had struggled to fight an enemy he couldn't see and couldn't wound, let alone defeat.

“She--” Bull muttered, lifting the arm to inspect the rope binding him as more memories pieced together.

“Knows her way around a rope, yes,” Dorian deadpanned. He nearly made mention of the fact that the fearless little woman in their midst had been the only person ballsy enough to not only put herself between the poison-rabid Qunari and the Inquisition soldiers who would have just assumed end him, but had dared pouncing the back of the man and hung on for dear life, until she, Krem and a handful of Chargers had managed to hook enough rope around him to keep him from killing himself or anyone else. Judging by the absolutely dumbstruck expression Bull was saddling the Inquisitor with just then, however, it was clear enough to Dorian that the former Ben Hassrath was recalling the incident just fine on his own.

“Korinna,” Dorian prodded softly. The hand Bull had been hovering near the young woman withdrew quickly, and his gaze grew surprisingly tense as he watched Dorian duck to brush a warm hand upon the young woman’s shoulder, “Inquisitor? He's awake.”

“What?” Korinna’s voice cracked quietly as she struggled to wake. She lifted her head just long enough to glance wearily at Bull, her motley green eyes catching his own. Her slim hand reaching cautiously his way, just shy of gracing his thickly stubbled jawline, “Bull, you're… Are you…”

She sounded downright… Emotional. Something visceral and utterly unused tugged tightly in the pit of Bull’s chest.

Bull’s brow furrowed heavily as he watched the little woman fuss over him with a gut-wrenching degree of sincerity. He swallowed hard past chapped lips and was quick to nod, “Yeah, boss. It's me. I'm all here.”

He fell perfectly, awkwardly still then as the Inquisitor practically leaped at the chance to throw her arms around his neck. She hugged him tightly as he sat hunched and oafish, unable to reciprocate in the least with his arms bound at his sides. Dorian stifled a smile behind loosely tented fingers, catching the Iron Bull’s look of daft shock from over the Inquisitor’s shoulder, and reveling in the sheer ridiculousness of his floundering.

Just as quickly, Korinna was on her feet in a burst of energy that defied having barely slept in days, “Dorian, help untie him, would you? Guard!” 

The soldier at watch just outside the quarters was sent to gather Krem and whatever members of the Chargers he could find. Moments later still, Korinna had slipped back into the bed at Bull’s side, a cup of water in-hand.

Achingly parched, the Iron Bull didn't protest in the slightest as the young woman tipped the cup to his lips with the sort of care one would lend a child. Moments and a pair of desperate gulps passed before Dorian had worked the ropes loose enough that Bull was able to handle his drink on his own volition. He watched placidly from over the lip of his cup as Korinna bounced back to her feet, only to return with the rest of the pitcher of water.

“You, sir,” the Inquisitor huffed a sigh after she'd poured her charge another full glass and set the pitcher upon the floor at her feet, “Gave us quite the scare. I suppose it's lucky for us you're one tough son of a bitch.” 

Bull had a distinct feeling that “us” very much meant “me.” As was so often the case, however, Trevelyan opted to place a careful degree of space between the pair of them - boundaries she had set in place early on.

“It's lucky for him you're so efficient at roping cattle,” Dorian deadpanned from his coy lean against the wall. Bull quirked an eyebrow at this. 

“Rude,” she shot at Dorian, only half-kidding. 

The Inquisitor never was particularly amicable about derogatory snipes towards her Qunari friends, Dorian knew. She'd lobbed more than her share of arrows towards sods daft enough to mutter Oxman in she or Bull’s presence, after all. It would seem even her soft spot for Dorian himself wasn't enough to stave off rebuke over such behavior. Not entirely, anyway. Still, Dorian couldn't help but smother a smug grin. The Iron Bull looked to be waffling over just how to handle such fussing from the little woman between them.

“There isn't a hunter worth their salt who can't take a prize alive with a sturdy knot and some quick thinking,” Korinna was prattling on as she worked to tug loose one of said knots at Bull’s right ankle, “But never mind that.” She glanced to Bull, “You're here. You're… you're breathing. That's really all that matters.” 

“Nonsense,” Dorian pressed, “You getting some rest before you tumble and snap your neck certainly matters, less this entire Inquisition goes up in flames.”

“Yes, mother,” Korinna muttered wearily.

The Iron Bull finally managed a chuckle at that, watching the woman at his side. Her burst of energy was fading the longer it remained apparent the her friend truly was well. Exhausted as she was relieved, she sighed and placed a weary forehead at his shoulder for a moment, her features lost behind a cascade of hair.

With little warning, the chamber door burst open in a flurry of jubilant noise. Korinna snapped back to, sitting upright, eyes wide as Bull’s Chargers came parading in, whooping and hollering the moment they caught sight of their Chief. The Inquisitor found herself ushered up and back, away from Bull, and clear of the band of mercenaries that quickly gathered around his bed. They were all broad grins, clapping merrily at the bemused Qunari’s broad shoulders.

“Come now,” Dorian pressed into Korinna’s ear as he ushered her towards the open door. Her feet felt like dead weights and her head swooned. The mage pulled her into his side, keen to keep her from hitting the floor, “You've no more excuses, my dear. You're going to rest.”

Still, her eyes were glued on Bull. For a moment, despite all of the fussing his Chargers did around him, he caught and held her gaze.

“Do have your medic tend to his bandages, would you? They're foul,” Dorian noted to Krem, who hung back from his peers, grinning broadly over their antics.

“Sure thing,” the Lieutenant chuckled, before stepping past to have a word with Stitches.

The chilly mountain air bit Korinna to the core the moment Dorian clipped the door shut behind them. It was well past sunset, and the sky glistened with stars over the surrounding silhouette of mountains. She hugged herself tight and clenched chattering teeth, but was grateful for the chill, nonetheless. It gave her another meager rush of energy… enough to get herself to a warm bed, at least.

“You've thrown him, you know.”

“What?” Korinna asked, hastening to catch up with the mage who had brushed right past her towards the stairs.

“I don't suppose that happens often, really, an assured Ben Hassrath - former although he may be - questioning his read on someone so thoroughly, but you've gone and done it anyway,” he mused. 

“Dorian…” The Inquisitor braced.

“All these months it's been ‘oh nonsense, Dorian. We're simply friends’ and ‘I’m the Inquisitor, Dorian. I can hardly think of bagging a Qunari mercenary at a time like this’ and here you are, making quite certain you're the one thing between that oaf and getting lynched by the whole of the Inquisition army - absolutely beside yourself with worry for days until he finally stirs…”

“Dorian, we’ve been over this,” Korinna sighed exhaustively. She had to focus on her feet, all the while, to keep from pitching forward down the stairs in the dark, “I'm not---”

“And now he sees it,” Pavus pressed on without missing a conspiratorial beat, “Such devotion, such care. The Inquisitor herself at his beck and call like his very own Tamassran, and he thinks to himself, have I been wrong all along? Is this positively frigid distance she's placed between us outside of platonic comradery shall we say… more malleable than I'd been convinced of before?”

“You honestly don't think I'd have done the same for anyone else? For you?” Weary feet clapping the safe footing of the dusty, darkened courtyard, Korinna finally paused. Tired - painfully so - and admittedly embarrassed at her friend’s declaration, she fussed, “Of course I would have. And I've told you countless times, it hardly matters what I think or what I feel. There's nothing I can do about it - nothing I can act upon. I can't. So what's the point, Dorian?”

“The point, my dear Inquisitor,” Dorian finally rounded on his heel to pace back her way, ducking just enough to meet her gaze, “Is that the degree to which you care for him can no longer be questioned, and for that, he's now teasing the idea that you very much can act upon it. And there's a positively dainty line between teasing an idea and testing those waters with his sort.”

“His sort,” Korinna bit, “You mean Qunari.”

“Tal Vashoth,” Dorian corrected, before softening his tone, “And I mean as someone who cares quite deeply for the few people he calls friends.”

Korinna fell silent. She looked drained and worried, and suddenly, just a little bit lost. Green eyes rose from her dusty booted feet to level with Dorian’s. While she was at a loss for words, her desire for some manner of advice hung heavily in the air.

“You have your friends here, Korinna. But at the end of the day, you are very much alone. And without the Qun, so is he,” Dorian noted quietly, “But neither of you have to be… certainly not when it's so clear the both of you care beyond measure what becomes of the other.”

She sighed, head lolling forward. Dorian had to chuckle, and pressed a hand to her back, guiding weary steps towards the stairwell across the way, “Tonight, however, all conspiracy theories aside, I suspect you'll sleep like the dead.”

“Or I'll lie awake fretting, thank you,” Korinna half-joked, barely stifling a yawn.

“Over a fair warning from a friend?” He mused warmly, hiking an arm around her shoulders against a sharp gust of wind, “I certainly hope not. You've had enough thrust upon you blindly amidst this inquisitorial calamity. Be it for me not to give you a fighting chance to land on your own feet from a blow I happen to see coming… even if you are ever so determinedly wearing a thick pair of blinders on the matter.”

“I have no such blinders,” Korinna insisted, “I simply don't want to see anyone get hurt.”

“Liar, liar,” Dorian teased as they began climbing the stairs to the main hall, “You're simply afraid… which is perfectly reasonable, given the mess you're in… anchor to demon-festooned portals on your hand, leader of an all-out rebellion and all. Just don't let that fear steal away what good you might find in all this, too.”

“Like mischievous best friends from Tevinter?” Korinna noted. She, it seemed, was finally finding some peace in the elder fellow’s words.

To that, Pavus could only grin, “Without question.”


End file.
